Yoshida-san - GLOBAL Servers and Balancing Tweaks Instead of Regional Servers

[Starlord]

• Server A [GLOBAL]
• Server B [GLOBAL]
• Server C [GLOBAL]
• Server D [Japan]
• Server E [Japan]
• Server F [North America]
• Server G [North America]
• Server H [Europe]
• Server I [Europe]

* (Global Servers are located in Japan)

This is the only thing I wouldn't mind. that way, people can have there "International style" Servers and the rest can be Regional based for those that have major issues with latency.

( times that a regional server would be dead, I can take that time to craft/leves/explore/quests that are soloable etc)

[Rhomagus]

This is the only thing I wouldn't mind. that way, people can have there "International style" Servers and the rest can be Regional based for those that have major issues with latency.

( times that a regional server would be dead, I can take that time to craft/leves/explore/quests that are soloable etc)

This was the strongest point of the OP. They almost lost me when they noted:

Friends and Linkshells will be split and broken, and all of this in the name of the Almighty Gameplay (Lag-Free supposedly).

Sarcastically degrading gameplay, in any game, tells me that someone might have a better time just chatting while watching a movie. Never should you sacrifice gameplay for aesthetics or other satellite qualities of a game. Thankfully I read on and found a great deal with which I could agree. I certainly respect some of the solutions the OP provided.

I did agree with making Global specific servers (though they'll have the same issue as Ragnarok does today, which isn't that much of an issue according to most Ragnarok denizens it's just the lowest population server). The same issues of "community" will arise regardless of this particular feature.

I also agree that, as an RPG, the game shouldn't be as focused on fast twitch gameplay. As an MMO it should be more focused on team communication and strategy but if that's the way they're taking it then reducing lag to enhance gameplay, with any means necessary, is paramount. I would personally prefer if they could bring back the transitional animations as an option at the very least. So those with killer gaming rigs won't have to sacrifice aesthetic quality for gameplay or for those that don't really care for fast twitch activities can still maintain their personal sense of "immersion".

Which brings me to my final point. Giving people the option to choose a server is a good thing. It will always be a good thing. If it destroys a persons "sense" of community then so be it honestly. It is apparent to anyone that if someone's community collapses over a server transition, then that person's "community" wasn't strong enough.

Govern to the individual to make their own choices. If someone's forced to be your friend, I'd be questioning the support structure of said friendship. In that situation, at best, they are probably just an acquaintance. If a "friend" can't stay in contact with someone over a server transition then could they really be considered a friend? Even operating at the most base levels of a relationship's foundation, if a friend can't stay a friend after a server transition then they were just a fair whether friend, at best, in the first place. If that is so, then you should be able to find just as many of these kinds of "friends" on your new server. Even then, the content finder should still operate in a way that you could still play with them. So the complaint of this feature disabling a community is a wash.

The community is one of the few things that is actually put into our control as players, and rightfully so. We all have different ideas of what a community is and what a community should be. I'd wager that most of us have many different communities that we are a part of simultaneously, but it's up to us as individuals to fulfill our role to maintain that community. It's not up to the development team to designate communities for us, and they haven't in any way shape or form. At least not in XIV. We choose the communities we're a part of based on the information we are given. They've promoted avenues in order for us to build communities but they haven't forced us into any particular one.

They did force us into communities in XI for many years. You didn't have a choice of server. You were literally forced into a sub-community upon character creation.

The XIV development team, in this regard, is undoubtedly giving us more than taking away. It's up to us as individuals to maintain our own relationships. We need to learn to differentiate between "acquaintances" and "friends" and proceed accordingly.